Smokin' Six-Shooter
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She took the dirt road out of town. Old Town White-horse had been the first settlement called Whitehorse. It had been nearer the Missouri River and the Breaks. That was back when supplies came by riverboat.
Once the railroad came through, five miles to the north, the town migrated to the tracks, taking the name Whitehorse with it.
As Jolene drove, she mentally replayed the conversation with the women of the sewing circle and was even more curious why they had been so reticent to talk about the murder.
RUSSELL FOUND HIS FATHER waiting for him when he returned to the ranch. Grayson Corbett was a large man with graying hair and an easygoing smile as well as attitude. Grayson had raised his five sons single-handedly from the time Russell was small and had done a damned good job.
Actually there was little his father couldn’t do. That’s why seeing him like this was so hard on Russell.
Worry lines etched Grayson’s still-handsome face and seemed to make his blue eyes even paler. Russell knew what he wanted to talk about the moment he saw his father and felt his stomach turn at the thought.
“We have to make a decision,” Grayson said without preamble. “We can’t put it off any longer.” Clearly his father had been thinking about the problem and probably little else since they’d last talked.
“You already know how I feel,” Russell said. “It’s a damned-fool thing and a waste of money as far as I’m concerned. What did the other ranchers and farmers have to say at the meeting?”
“Some agree with you. But there are more who are ready to try anything if there’s a chance of saving their crops.”
Russell shook his head, seeing that his father had already made his decision.
“If some of these farmers and ranchers don’t get some moisture and soon, they’re going to lose everything,” Grayson said. “I don’t think we have a choice.”
“So what did you tell them?”
“I told them I had to talk to my son,” his father said. “This is your ranch as much as mine, more actually. You get the final word.”
Russell could see that his father was worried about the others, who had the most to lose. “What choice do we have?”
If he and his father didn’t go along with the rest, he doubted the fifteen thousand dollars needed to hire the rainmaker could be raised. “I’ll go along with whatever decision you make.”
Grayson looked relieved, not that the worry lines softened. They were throwing good money away, Russell believed. But if the ranchers and farmers wanted to believe some man could make rain, then he wasn’t going to try to stop them.
“Thank you,” Grayson said as he laid a heavy hand on his son’s shoulders. “At least by hiring a rainmaker, they feel they’re doing something to avert disaster.”
THE MILK RIVER EXAMINER was the only newspaper for miles around. It was housed in a small building along the main street facing the tracks.
Andi Blake, the paper’s only reporter, a friendly, attractive woman with a southern accent, helped Jolene.
“What date are you looking for?” Andi asked.
Jolene told her it would have been this month twenty-four years ago. “I’m not sure of the exact date.”
“I wasn’t here then, but you’re welcome to look. Everything is on microfiche. You know how to use it?”
Jolene did from her college days. She thanked Andi, then sat down in the back of the office and, as the articles from May twenty-four years ago began to come up on screen, she began to roll her way through.
She slowed at the stories about the drought conditions, the fears of the ranchers and farmers, talk of hiring a rainmaker to come to town. A few papers later, there was a small article about a rainmaker coming to town and how the ranchers were raising money to pay him to make rain.
With a shudder, Jolene thought of the murder story and her feeling that the weather conditions were too much like this year.
The headline in the very next newspaper stopped her cold.
Woman Murdered in Brutal Attack
An Old Town Whitehorse resident was found murdered in her home last evening.
Heart in her throat, Jolene read further, then backtracked, realizing that the article didn’t say who found the body.
The sheriff was asking anyone with information in connection to the murder of Laura Beaumont to come forward.
If this Laura Beaumont was the same woman that the author of the murder story was writing about, she had at least one lover.
Their DNA would have been in the house. But had law enforcement even heard of DNA testing twenty-four years ago? It wouldn’t have been widely used even if they had. Certainly not in Whitehorse.
Jolene continued to read, halting on the next paragraph.
The woman was found upstairs in her bed. She had been stabbed numerous times.
Had her lover found her? Or—
Sheriff’s deputies are searching for the woman’s missing young daughter.
Missing?
Angel Beaumont is about four or five years old with brown hair and eyes. It is unknown what she might have been wearing at the time of her disappearance.
Jolene quickly flipped to the next weekly newspaper and scanned for an article about the murder. The girl was still missing a week later?
Searchers are combing the creek behind the farmhouse for the girl’s body, but with no sign of the daughter. If anyone knows of the child’s whereabouts or has information about the killing, they are to contact the sheriff’s department at once. All calls will be confidential.
A few issues later, Jolene found the news article about the daughter.
DULCIE GRABBED SOMETHING to eat at a small café downtown and debated if she should call this Arlene Evans woman or drive out to her place. She opted to drive out unannounced and talk to her face-to-face.
As she was leaving the café, her mind on what she would say once she reached the Evans place, Dulcie bumped into a young woman coming out of one of the local businesses.
“Pardon me,” Dulcie said as the woman, slim, dark-haired and pretty, dropped the folder she’d been carrying. Papers fluttered across the sidewalk. “I’m so sorry.”
Dulcie hurried to help her pick up the scattered sheets, noticing that they were copies of newspaper articles. One headline caught her eye. Investigation Continues in Murder Case.
“Thank you,” the young woman said, clearly upset as she hurriedly stuffed the copies back into the folder and rushed to her compact car parked at the curb.
Murder? Dulcie wondered how many murders they had in a town like this and what were the chances the article could have been about Laura Beaumont. She told herself that when she had more time and information, she’d come back and have a look at some old newspaper stories.
As she climbed into her rental car, she put the incident out of her mind and drove south to the Evans place outside of Old Town Whitehorse.
Like everything else in this part of Montana, the houses were few and far between, with a lot of prairie and gullies and sagebrush to fill the spaces.
It was late and Dulcie wasn’t sure what approach to use when she knocked on the farmhouse door.
“Arlene Evans?” she asked the tall, rawboned ranch-woman who answered the door. Her hair was short in a becoming style that made her appear younger than Dulcie had expected.
“Yes?”
“I’m looking for some information and I was hoping you could help me.”
“I’ll certainly try. Why don’t you step in out of the heat? I just made some lemonade. Would you like a glass?”
Dulcie blinked in surprise at how easy it had been to get inside this woman’s home. Had this been Chicago and a stranger knocking on Dulcie’s door…well, she wouldn’t have opened it, let alone invited her inside for lemonade.
Dulcie noticed photographs on the wall of what appeared to be Arlene’s grown children. The oldest looked to be in her thirties and rather frumpy. A woman in her early twenties was posing with a baby in her arms and a young man, presumably her husband, standing next to her. They looked as if they were crazy about each other. The third photo was of a handsome young man, but there was something sneaky in his gaze.
“Is this about my rural online dating service?” Arlene asked from the kitchen. “Have a seat,” she said, motioning to the adjacent living room as she came in, and handed Dulcie a tall glass of lemonade.
It looked so good she took a sip before she sat down in the immaculate house. “This is wonderful,” she said, licking her lips.
Arlene Evans smiled as she sat down across from her. The house was surprisingly cool, considering how hot it was outside.
“An online rural dating service? That does sound interesting, but I’m here about something else,” Dulcie said. “Let me be candid with you. I am up here looking at a piece of property.” It was the truth. Just not as much truth as she’d told Roselee at the museum. She didn’t want another reaction like that one.
“Property?” Arlene repeated.
“I’m trying to find out the history of the place. I understand you’ve lived here all your life and might be able to help me.”
“Well, like I said, I’ll certainly try.”
Dulcie noticed the ring on Arlene’s finger as she put down her lemonade glass on one of the coasters on the coffee table. “That’s a beautiful ring.”
“Thank you. I’m getting married in a few months. A Christmas wedding.”
“Congratulations.” The diamond was extraordinary, and Dulcie wondered if Arlene was marrying some rich rancher from around here.
“So where is this property?”
“It’s outside Old Town Whitehorse. I believe the last occupant of the place was named Laura Beaumont?”
“Oh, my gosh.” Arlene’s expression told her that she’d hit paydirt.
“Did you know Laura?”
“Not personally. I knew she was widowed. She wasn’t from around here and wasn’t here all that long. I heard the land belonged to her husband’s family and was all that she had, so she had no choice but to live here after her husband died. She leased all of the farmland. Clearly she had no interest in farming or living in the country.”
Arlene seemed to catch herself. “I shouldn’t be saying anything because I didn’t know her. You know how rumors get started.”
Apparently Arlene was trying to live down her reputation as a gossip. “Do you know where Laura moved from?” asked Dulcie.
“California. That was another reason it was odd. Californians move to Montana all the time, just not this part of Montana, if you know what I mean.”
She did. California though? Not the Chicago area. So how was it that her parents knew this woman?
“Can you tell me what happened to her?”
“You don’t know?”
Dulcie wanted to hear it from Arlene. “Please, I really need you to be honest with me. I heard she might have been murdered?”
“Well, it’s not like I’m carrying tales. Everyone knows. She was murdered in one of the upstairs bedrooms twenty…oh, my gosh, twenty-four years ago this month!”
Did that explain why Roselee at the museum had gotten so upset? “Murder must be rare in this part of the country,” she said, thinking of the woman she’d run into earlier with the copies of the newspaper clippings about a murder.
“It is rare, but this murder.” Arlene shook her head. “It was quite vicious. She was stabbed to death over a dozen times and the killer was never caught.”
Dulcie was trying to take this all in when Arlene said, “What made it all the more horrific was her daughter.”
“Her daughter?”
“She was just a little thing, four or five, as I recall. They discovered her bloody footprints in the bedroom where she’d come in. She must have seen her mother lying there and ran.”
Chapter Four
Kate Corbett saw at once that her oldest stepson wasn’t himself at supper. The quietest of the five brothers, Russell also was the most grounded. He was the one who’d gone into ranching with his father right out of college. Grayson couldn’t manage without Russell working the ranches with him so Kate was thankful for that.
When Grayson had sold out his holdings in Texas and moved to Montana, his sons had been shocked and blamed Kate, she knew.
Later when Grayson had asked them all to come to Montana for a family meeting, the other four had come, but not happily.
Fortunately that had changed, she thought, as she glanced around the supper table at the large family she’d married into. It had grown since they’d all been in Montana.
The second oldest, Lantry Corbett, was a divorce lawyer of all things. And while he was still in Montana on the ranch, Kate didn’t expect him to stay.
Shane Corbett, the next oldest, had been on medical leave from the Texas Rangers. Kate knew that if he hadn’t fallen in love with a local girl, he would have returned to Texas.
Instead, he’d hired on with the Whitehorse sheriff’s department as a deputy. He and Maddie Cavanaugh had recently married in a triple wedding with his twin brothers, Jud and Dalton.
Kate certainly hadn’t seen that coming, but she couldn’t have been happier to see the daughter she’d never known so happy. She and Maddie had some things to work out still, but they had time, Kate told herself.
Jud was the youngest, but only by a few minutes of his fraternal twin, Dalton. Jud had been working as a stuntman in Hollywood but had fallen in love with Faith Bailey while shooting a film in Montana. The two had started a stunt-riding school on her family ranch not far from Trails West Ranch.
Dalton had fallen for the owner of the local knit shop, Georgia Michaels. That one Kate had seen coming and she and Grayson couldn’t be more pleased.
Even though the three sons had married, they and their wives were living on the ranch until their houses could be completed. It was wonderful having such a full table and Juanita, the cook Grayson had talked into making the move to Montana, loved it. She’d outdone herself each meal, wanting to make the new brides feel at home here.
Marriage, surprisingly, was what had brought Grayson’s sons to Montana. For years after his wife, Rebecca, had died, leaving him with five young sons to raise, Grayson hadn’t been able to go through Rebecca’s things. Nor did anyone expect him to remarry.
Kate and Rebecca had been best friends, growing up together on the Trails West Ranch in Montana until Kate’s father grew ill and died, the ranch lost.
Kate also lost track of her friend who’d married Grayson Corbett and moved to Texas. It wasn’t until Kate found some old photographs of Rebecca that she decided to pay Grayson a visit.
There had been a spark between them from the moment they’d met. In a whirlwind romance, they’d married and Grayson had surprised her by buying Trails West Ranch for her and moving lock, stock and barrel to Montana as a wedding present.
That was when Grayson finally went through Rebecca’s things and found some old letters she had written before she died.
In a letter to Grayson, Rebecca had explained that she’d written five letters, one for each son, to be read on his wedding day. Her dying wish was that her sons would marry before thirty-five—and that the bride be a Montana cowgirl.
While Kate had heard that the brothers drew straws to see who would fulfill their mother’s wishes first, she’d known the brothers well enough to know they would try to get out of the pact. But amazingly, she’d seen Rebecca’s wishes coming true with all but two of her sons.
Although Lantry had no intention of ever marrying, he hadn’t left the ranch. What had made them stay, Kate felt, was family.
As for Russell, well, she believed he’d never met a woman who interested him enough to pursue her.
Kate and Grayson had had a few rough spots since their marriage, but everything had finally settled down.
That’s why seeing this change in Russell intrigued her.
“How was your day?” she asked Russell now, curious.
He’d been smiling to himself all through the meal. Normally he ate quickly and went back to work, excusing himself by saying he had too much to do to just sit around.
Tonight, though, he seemed lost in thought, unusually distracted, especially since his father and the rest of the ranchers and farmers were worried sick about the lack of moisture this spring.
“Fine.” He looked bashful suddenly. Like his father and brothers he was a very good-looking man, with Grayson’s dark hair and his mother’s intense blue eyes.
“Nothing unusual happened?” Kate probed.
Russell realized that everyone was staring at him, waiting.
“Nothing happened. I just almost killed some city girl today.”
“What?” Kate exclaimed.
“Don’t worry, she was unscathed.” At everyone’s urging, he told them about coming over a rise in the combine, not expecting anyone to be on the road since no one had lived in the old Beaumont place for years and the road dead-ended a mile up.
“She was sitting in her fancy rental car, right in the middle of the road on her cell phone,” he said, getting the appropriate chuckles and head shakes. Kate could tell he was embarrassed, not used to being the center of attention in this family.
“Where was she from?” Grayson asked.
“Midwest, from her accent, but definitely big city. You should have seen the shoes she was wearing.” Russell shook his head. “And when she tried to open the gate…”
“Open the gate to where?” Shane wanted to know.
“The old Beaumont place, isn’t that what it’s called?”
“Why would she go in there?” his father wanted to know.
“Beats me. It’s what she wanted so I opened the gate for her. I warned her it was private property. She didn’t seem to care. I think she thought I was joking when I told her about the rattlesnakes.”
“Oh, I hope she was all right,” Kate said, worried. “You just left her there?”
Russell laughed, seeming to relax, maybe even enjoy himself. “She wasn’t like a stray dog I was going to bring home.”
“Still, if she was that inept, she could get herself into trouble.”
Russell nodded. “I’m sure she will, but believe me, she didn’t want my help—or my advice.”
No, Kate thought, she was sure the woman hadn’t, but city girl or not, she’d certainly made an impression on Russell—something not easy to do.
DULCIE SHUDDERED. Laura Beaumont’s young daughter had found her body? That poor child. That poor, poor child.
The horrible dread Dulcie had felt earlier at the farmhouse swept over again.
I wasn’t that little girl.
Where had that come from? Of course she wasn’t Laura Beaumont’s daughter. Why had she even thought such a thing?
Just because of her earlier reaction to yellow curtains and the groaning weather vane? Just because she couldn’t shake the sense of dread and fear?
Or because of the obvious? She’d inherited the property from a woman she’d never heard of and a woman her parents had never mentioned to her.
Dulcie recalled Renada’s reaction when she’d told her. She cleared her throat. “How old did you say this child was?”
“Four or five, I think. I’m not sure anyone knew for sure.”
Four or five would make the child about twenty-eight or twenty-nine now. Dulcie had just turned twenty-eight.
“What was the daughter’s name?”
“Angel.”
Angel. Dulcie felt a surge of relief that lasted only an instant. Of course the girl’s name would have been changed if she was adopted.
Dulcie couldn’t believe what she was thinking, but the kids at school and even their parents used to ask her if she was adopted because her parents were so much older than the other parents.
But if she’d been adopted, her parents would have told her. They wouldn’t have kept something like that from her.
Like the way they kept the property in Montana from her?
Her heart began to pound as she thought of her elderly parents, her mother’s years of trying to conceive without any luck, her mother finally getting Dulcie so late in life. Miracle? Or lie?
Everything could be a lie, including her real name.
“What happened to the daughter?” Dulcie had to ask.
Arlene sighed. “She was found drowned a couple weeks after her mother’s murder.”
The shock reverberated through her.
“They found her under some brush in the creek. She’s buried at the cemetery at Old Town Whitehorse next to her mother.”
Dulcie was so stunned it took her a moment to speak. “She’s dead?” She couldn’t be Angel Beaumont. She thought of the little girl and felt horrible for the moment of relief she’d experienced.
Arlene nodded solemnly. “It was a horrible tragedy, both mother and daughter.”
“Do they think the killer—”
“No,” Arlene said quickly. “The sheriff said she had fallen and hit her head and drowned. The creek wasn’t very deep that spring. It had been very hot and dry.”
Dulcie felt shaken. The mother murdered, the daughter killed in a freak accident. It still didn’t explain how Dulcie had inherited the property. Or why she’d reacted the way she had when she’d seen the yellow curtains in that second-floor window and heard the tortured sound of the weather vane.
She downed the cold drink in her hand, suddenly exhausted. “Thank you for the lemonade. It was delicious.”
“So will you buy the property?” Arlene asked as Dulcie rose to leave.
She could see that the woman was curious about Dulcie’s real reason for asking about Laura Beaumont and her daughter. Maybe even more curious why she’d want the property.
“I hope I haven’t dissuaded you.”
“Not at all,” Dulcie said. “I’m going to sleep on it. I couldn’t make any kind of a decision as tired as I am.”
She left Arlene and drove back to Whitehorse. It had gotten dark, the sky deepening from dove gray to an inky black devoid of moon or stars, as if the heat had melted them. She tried not to think as she let the car’s air-conditioning blow on her, but her mind raced anyway.
She wasn’t Angel Beaumont. But it gave her no peace. Laura murdered, her daughter, Angel, drowned in the creek, the property left to Dulcie—a little girl herself at the time. Something was wrong with all this, she could feel it.
As she passed through town, the temperature sign on the bank read eighty-four degrees. It was going to be another miserably hot night.
She chose the first motel she came to on the edge of town. Once inside her room, she showered, turned up the air conditioner and lay down on the bed.
She thought about calling Renada, but didn’t feel up to it even though there was a message from her friend. Tomorrow, when she didn’t feel so exhausted, so depressed. If she called her now, Renada would hear how discouraged she was and insist on coming out to Montana. Anyway, it was too late to call with the time difference between here and Chicago.
Dulcie expected to fall into a deep sleep almost instantly, as tired as she was. But when she closed her eyes, she saw the yellow curtains move in the upstairs bedroom and heard the groan of the weather vane on the barn in the hot, dry wind.
All she could think about was that little girl. That poor little girl.
JOLENE WOKE TO DARKNESS and sat up, startled, to find she’d fallen asleep in her living-room chair.
The pages from the short stories fluttered to the floor at her feet as she reached for the lamp next to her chair and checked the time.
Well after midnight. She must have been more tired than she’d thought. She blamed the relentless heat, which had zapped her energy and left her feeling like a wrung-out dishrag.
Even this late, the air in the small house was hot and close. She felt clammy and yearned for a breath of cool air as she turned up the fan in the window. All it did was blow in warm air, but even warm air was better than nothing.